debate for the kentucky senate debate. debateisiana senate between a field of candidates including charles boustany, foster campbell, carolyn fayard, kennedy, and john david duke. at 9:00, republican senator kelly ayotte and maggie hassan debate for the new hampshire senate seat. now until election day, watch key debates on the c-span networks. c-span.org. and listen on the c-span radio app. c-span, where history unfolds daily. election day, november 8, the nation decides our next president and which party controls the house and senate. coverage ofspan for the presidential race including campaign stops with donald trump

and hillary clinton and follow key house and senate races. c-span, where history unfolds daily. now, to russian journalists discuss the relationship between the russian government and russian media. this is about an hour and 40 minutes. >> thank you very much everyone for joining us today. can you hear me in the back? for joiningry much us today. i am call saunders, executive director of the center for national interest. we appreciate everyone being with us for this discussion of the russian state and the

russian media. hasu.s.-russia relationship obviously did terrier rated sharply over the last two years and particularly over the last several months, with a variety of causes and precipitating events. beenat context, there has increasing attention certainly in the united states and other western countries to the russian media. both in the role of russian in what iide russia think many in the west at this point would call russian propaganda. but also in the role of the russian media inside the country. and its role in shaping public

opinion, in mobilizing political support. element ofhat latter this question that i hope we will focus on today. we are very pleased to have two speakers, each of whom is a russian journalist. have maria who is a columnist for the russian newspaper. it is a business oriented mariao is a paper that until relatively recently with theshed jointly financial times, the wall street journal, and some russian participation. russia causedw in the wall street journal and the financial times to sell their stakes. however, the paper still often

challenges russian official policy and perspectives on a number of issues. maria will speak first. anna.left, is on a -- is she is the international news chief with russia 24. which is a 24 hour news channel of the complex russian state media enterprise. -- she has also worked in the past for a russian state news agency. second.will speak give ushey will each some very interesting perspectives on this issue of the relationship between the

state and the media. i have asked each of them to speak for about 10 minutes. after that, we will open it up for questions. thank you very much. maria. maria: it is a big honor for me to be here. i wanted to point out that our at ansion comes interesting time because it yesterday, the editor in chief been publication which has one of the best publications in russia. she announced that she was leaving soon. that announcement came a year after the owner -- that the ownership structure had been changed. the foreign owners, the western solds were holders but

their shares to the russian oligarchs, and businessmen. since then, the policies have been changing which culminated in the recent announcement that the editor in chief is leaving. now, i want to start this with a statement by discredited briefly the relationship between the media and the state. when asked to describe his reaction to the media coverage of the tragedy of the islam said the relationship between the state and the media is comparable of that between a man and a woman. the man always tries and the woman always resists. when you actually look at what has been happening in the last 10 years, the relationship

resembles more the one between donald trump and women. it is when a real man always tries but a real woman cannot always resist. and is forced to surrender. one of the important practices that he learned during his service is that the media is a instrument that can be manipulated to achieve the strategic goals. when it comes to the kremlin today, and how it operates the media, that element of the control and manipulation of information in order to achieve the kremlin's domestic or international goals is extremely important. since like has

taken power in 2000, the general trend when it comes to russian political freedom and civil liberties have been negative. ae freedom house has recorded decline in freedoms. vladimir putin's ascent to power them with the closure of the largest tv them with the closure of the largest tv channel. since then, the trend has continued. i want to point out that the trend is not linear. it comes in waves. the waves of persecution against , usually after a big development whether it be international or domestic.

example, it usually comes after the media has gained too much independence. 2012, he came back to power, that was followed by prohibitive laws against the media on the market. most of those with a degree of foreign ownership. he limited the foreign ownership to keep her said. that is a way to force my own publication to sell the shares to the russian owners. trend is persecution against the media coming in

waves. the reason for the waves would be the change of president and power or in war. the georgian war and the ukrainian war also launched another wave of attacks against the media. each wave is more prohibitive and the trend is negative. recently, a couple of years ago, i was looking for another publication to give an article two. i found five available independent media. all of the other ones are not really free. if i write something very sharp, it will not be accepted. media, whoes to the is in particular danger?

which media outlets are in the red zone? which once are likely to be persecuted? that is used by the kremlin -- the fundamental to thea is the access russian audience and the size of the audience. in 2000 wasnel that the first to come under attack was because its influence during 1999 and 2000 elections was obviously very strong. it was the only federal channel which was independent from the kremlin. way, the tv and cable tv channel which was 2000 gainedthe late

some strong success in 2011 and 2012. the best timeframe of tv rain. gn,tv rei it had access to about 10% of the russian population. people.on in 2012, that channel came under eventually cut off from tv broadcasting. -- on sorry, the tv survived but now it is only available on the internet and broadcasting is late. nowadays, it's audience has 5 million or by some estimates one million people.

-- a smallve a large audience, that seems to be ok. some media outlets with quasi-independent broadcasting have about one million people in their audience and they seem to be surviving. criteria is the aggressiveness of your message against the kremlin. if you are extremely aggressive and the content of your is anti-kremlin, in this case, you are in danger. , quasi-independent media outlets that survived -- they try not to be overly aggressive. aggressive,ruly even with a relatively small audience, you're likely to be

closed. website.ened with one you want to survive, try not to be overly provocative. also, as pointed out by the rbc,r editor in chief of the kremlin tends to be more to be discontent with the media when it is not in its favor. today, we see that officials become more sensitive to whatever is being published against them. an increased number of persecution of the media that publishes something about

corruption of certain officials for example. one official had a story published about him regarding his young wife and a yacht. he assumed as a result. sued as a result. if anything, the prosecution tends to increase over time. comes toy, when it steps in taking control of the media, i want to talk about that relationship between the kremlin and media.

there are a lot of similar trends between russia and the soviet union but in general, the censorship and control over the media is much more it knew whence -- is much more nuanced than it used to be. andt of all, the censorship taking control of the media, i does not follow any precise rule. selectivity in the censorship -- when to media outlets published the same article, one can be persecuted and the other may not be. the question is -- why? first of all, the kremlin seems to be learning from china because china has a similar censorship approach. such an approach is much less costly. rather than persecuting

pick severalu just people, punish them and everyone else sees. that is self-censorship. people understand the signals. and so people stop publishing because that can get you into trouble. the second important characteristic is that very often, rather than completely eliminating certain information available in the media, the kremlin modifies the narrative. bunch of fake -halfes or half fake half truth stories.

ultimately receives different descriptions of the same story without knowing which one is right. that happened with the coverage of the downing of the mh 17 flight in ukraine. than seeing that it did not happen altogether, the kremlin outlets broadcast the news but it also broadcast different explanations as to home may have been behind the crash such as the ukrainians they had targeted the peutin plane which was flying nearby or maybe the united states which had a special missile that targeted the flight. what is created by this approach is very conveniently, the

thinks there is no smoke without fire. used withapproach is the russian domestic audience and the same approach is used by the program media here as well. when russia informs you of certain news, it gives you different explanations of this as --hich you perceive for example, the separatists may have had something to do with this but there is no smoke without fire. shifted to is then support the pro-kremlin position. rather than them saying it was the separatists. they say something suspicious happened there. it can be that easy. this is convenient because this

provides a degree of flexibility to the kremlin. ultimately, the third important characteristic of the kremlin censorship program is the ofporate or legal dimension taking the media under control. putin has a legal education and you can really see that in a lot of his policies. usually, he does not just do something. the kremlin always has a legal document to justify the president's actions. when it comesns to the media control in russia. every wave of persecution of the media is restrictions used

selectively against media in the red zone. of it israte dimension that very often the kremlin rather than trying to completely destroy a certain media outlet or killing certain replacests, it tries to the leadership or the ownership or change the ownership structure. here we are talking about a certain media in danger or in question. loyal owner?a an owner is forced to sell it to a more loyal person. replaced withis another one.

or there is a law that forces the media to change the .wnership structure tocan ask the russian media decrease the share of foreign ownership. there is a very important corporate aspect of censorship that is important. it is more peaceful rather than violent. is very fewome independent media outlets remain in russia. definitely none of them has a large enough audience. even the independent media that survived, are forced to go through certain compromises. of publishes a lot anti-criminal -- anti-kremlin .aterial

ultimately, how does the russian audience react to this? content believe in the that they receive from the state media. the answer is yes and no as to whether they believe. there was a decline in trust for the content of the state media news. of russians, 90% of russians receive most of their news from the russian state owned tv channel. also saw the response by the kremlin media that followed. they opened up the broadcast and

tried to write a little more of their position minded people. fundamentally, this year the trust has increased. thismportant part is that , thisch to the media particular state media relationship with russia --. there are different viewpoints and the purposeful distortion of the narrative in the news creates a deep distrust with the media content among the russians. unfortunately, this mistrust not only influences the state media but also the independently positioned media. as a result, you have russians

that are quite passive. and they are mistrustful of any news including the state. and the independent media news. the apathy is because they feel there is no truth in the world and everyone is taking advantage of you. the best response would be not to do anything because it is likely some kind of attempt to manipulate you. this approach to the media has been very successful to achieve. is demotivating too much of the russian population. thank you very much, maria. and now, we turn the floor over to anna. i will pick up from where

maria stopped. this election in september showed that we have a passive which prefers to stay at home. is how the success factor of the media has influenced the public. we have so many fake stories in the state. people prefer not to go and vote. they prefer to stay at all and read something on the internet. the internet is an interesting factor. becauseocus on it nowadays, the russian media

to be difficult. we see how they can influence the public. and we have the internet segment which is growing very fast. russia now is when at the leaders if we judge by the numbers, russia is first place in the world by the number of connections. and some independent media prefer to focus on this audience . for example, we have the case of the case ofdia -- medusa which is an internet portal that was created a few years ago.

the audience is russian. they are written -- they are writing in russia. and covering all kinds of news. onst, they wanted to focus the critics of the president but then they understood that they can develop soft news, so-called the news like discussing parks in moscow. and they have succeeded in the end. because of the very good level of russian language. now, this is a situation where in russia we have a lack of journalists who are really able russian and to put the information freely and in a few words. if you open the state

newspapers, if you see in my channel, we have some situations where i hear the voice of the how and i cannot understand he is connected to the real life of the people. there are always some strange russian stories so people tend to turn off the tv and go back to the internet. this is an important factor. the structure is important. and it is segmenting no. holding we have several channels. theave 11 channels in system including sports, culture, and the news. i am from the channel which focuses on the 24 hour news.

and we have our first federal channel. actually, we are all federal but we called the main channel federal because it covers all of the people and that is referring to russia. even we have the difference between the first channel and us. we focus on news broadcasting, we --erstand that our viewer sometimes it is people from the government and sometimes these are the businessman who really want to receive some information, maybe numbers, maybe some statistics. and they need the analysis.

they do not need any politicking there. that is why shows where the discussion -- they always go to the first channel and sometimes the discussions really seem to becauseo professional the first factor is lack of time. in the second factor is that we have problems not only with the journalists but with experts as well. so sometimes, people really believe that they go to the state television and they start to describe or start talking about one problem and then they can say everything and go without preparation, no numbers, nothing. if you are home watching with a you areducation, and if working in a business and you turn on the tv and you understand you have no desire to

watch it anymore because it is just opinions and you need information. the second factor which is very important now and it really isluences the russian media the economic constraints. the crisis of 2008 really affected the russian media and most of the independent media closed because of the economic factor. it could behat persecution from the government. but we cannot deny that many newspapers and tv channels did not have enough money. now, you see this week, one one of ourpment, best channels, life news, it was

dissolved and it was dissolved because they do not have enough money even though they tried to work like sky news. newswere relying on hot topics and they really sometimes took positions that could be in the opposition to the government. but still, they focused on the moscow news. for example, the social aspects because that needs to be covered in the russian media. sometimes, we have a lack of economic news, social news, news about for example the hospital's and the quality of service there. .ews about the education affairs -- and

foreign affairs. this could be the second problem is the economic constraints. talk about the connection between the government and the state media, i have to tell one thing. have the echo of moscow, the liberal radio -- every week we have a meeting at the government. channels and the the radio stations and the big newspapers, they go there. it is authorized people because there could be some speculation. this is important because this

is the security. they go and they have discussions about how to cover this or that news. the directot have bands. i believe this is very understandable because this is the problem of national security. sometimes, people from the ministry will call us for example and they ask us not to show this or that from our reports because for example, you can see a playing their and it should not be there. so, we try to do that.

from my experience, i work every day with the associated press and we have the normal exchange of information. them forlike i can ask some footage from key have -- not have where we do anything. presentrters cannot be at a government meeting. and we exchange the information. fullimes, i give them the footage of the president talking. problemsn't have any with the foreign media. out, rarely pointed -- already our government has

eliminated the foreign present. there is a reason. was thees it russians who went to london and seeing foreign companies that want to work in russia. they are trying to influence the russian public. they were not popular. 2016, itrs, 2015 and showed that we do not have that much in common with them. they are still people from the

beginning of the century and we are trying to get developed. i want to end my presentation at about the word propaganda. i receive a lot of negative words from my international colleagues about the state media. comes from a verb which means to exploit and explain people. there is nothing bad in that. nothing bad in the word itself. but it has the problem of how it is perceived in the nation and how it has been brought into reality.

as example, on my channel well as in many state channels, we have the problem when people have self limitations. they really believe that government will hold them and ask them to stop showing this or that report but it does not actually happen. it never happens. examplesgh we have the of when the government calls us and asking why we are not showing this or that. it could be a very funny story. and the government in russia is very segmented out -- is very segmented now and we should understand that people working circle,n and his inner and ministers, they all differ. couldis or that ministry

be in not good relations with the other ministry. receive a lot of information from them. for example the minister of culture trying to do this and the minister of transportation trying to do that. that is why the person of the -- we neede channel to analyze and make the decision. but it will be our decision not the governmental decision. thank you very much. perhapslike to actually ask each of you a question before we open up for questions from the audience. i will try to be very brief but i want to press each of you on a particular point. anna, in your case, on one hand

you talked about it sounded like weekly meeting between government officials and heads of major channels and newspapers where government officials are explaining how they would like russian media to cover the news. but at the same time, you just said a minute ago, that the government is not calling and trying to block a particular story or something like that. what i am trying to understand i happens,this meeting the heads of these organizations get this input from the government. is there an expectation that and that act on that there is an enforcement mechanism if they do not? is it an instruction?

advice? there is no contradiction in all of this. this is the advice. but it also depends on what is the topic. for example, if we go back to the war news and military, they could call and call again and asked to do something that still we do not have any enforcement mechanism. it is not like it used to be. maybe five or six years ago. in the way to put it of consultation. a consultation when all of these people, the heads of the channels and newspapers, they

had their words to the government. they may also asked the government to provide some information because if they need details, the government should provide the information and the details. we are to explain this to the public. paul: ok, thank you. maria, i would like to ask you a different question. russia that are independent from the government. and i am trying to use my language very precisely because you mentioned ntb for example -- mtv for example which is a channel that president putin shut down 15 years ago after a confrontation with its owner. on one hand, a channel like that was independent from the government that on the other hand, it was not so independent from the owner and his political objectives. thatof the media in russia are independent from the

government are nevertheless very dependent on particular individuals and their financial resources and their own political objectives. thatu feel that media like , certainly they contribute to a variety of different perspectives in russia and having different perspectives is usually a good thing, but at the same time, do you feel that they can realistically serve the public interest? gov. mccrory: -- depends oness that how you define the concept of media freedom. isme, media freedom plurality of different owners and different opinions. the truth is always a little bit subjective. in the u.s. as in russia, we need different owners of different media with different interests that would provide an audience with

alternative viewpoints. russianlem with coverage today is that the majority of russians do not have any alternative viewpoints because the only one they get is the meetings or communication. majority of russians do all of that without any change of positions. you can say that internet, but first of all, russia's internet freedom declined as internet at coverage increases. russia is one of the largest internet coverage in the world, but the more people have access to the internet, the less free internet becomes.

-- other websites are changing their content. ns areoblem is a russia not looking for alternative viewpoints. the concept about the righteous mind. -- theprone to select same thing consistently when the russians look at the way russians look at the internet. from the tvget channel, this is the message. they want to know that russia is not a great power. they want to know that russia is a great power. so they look on the internet and they look for pictures. senator paul: some things are truly -- paul: some things are

universal. maria: they look for content that confirms their opinions. the new york times being completely independent of political interest. that is bipartisan. that is great. that is great that you have access to both of them and can compare. that is what i would like to see in russia. unfortunately, we do not see a lot of that in russia. paul: let's open it up for questions from the audience. keith and -- if you could please identify yourselves as you ask your questions. >> american university. i want to pick up on the issue of propaganda. where you might distinguish between what we call propaganda and getting a set of ideas is

the factual basis of what is being propagated. several of us on the u.s. side have a sense that there are elaborate also it's being put out -- they are deliberate falsehoods being put out an russian media. i wonder if you could comment on that. for example, the image 17, some of the information about that .op -- the crucifixion stories some of these stories were objectively not true. that is different from putting out a different version of events. some of these things were shameful for us, because when i saw the reports with the crucifixion in ukraine, it was shameful. it was untrue. after that, the government said

to remove the report, because it was shameful. this is the thing with us and ukraine. absorbed by the population so we we have this report being told again after two years. , that was thens point that was pointed out, that we don't have enough experts and good reporters. this is the problem. -- fact checking and beyond to provided the arguments and proof. this is a very important thing. topic -- the second or third, we have a very investigative

journalism in russia which we do not have qualified reporters. they really try to do an investigation into -- in two or three days which cannot be done. especially with the image 17 problem. -- m h 17 problem. they wanted to try and ask the government to provide some information. they were afraid of. that i -- government too restrictive on this topic because they themselves have to perform an investigation first to understand for themselves what happened, because the first week it

happened, nobody had an idea. , we had a hugeng recommendation. we won the -- mr. putin talking on this and that and we are talking him -- we are showing him talking. this is the thing. really -- i can feel that they don't have their own position. the government's own have their own that's the government doesn't have their own decision -- the government does not have their own position. paul: please identify yourself. maria.ve a question for

i wanted to know about russia nowadays. what is the immediate space after the government tracks -- try to narrow it down. how has that played out? how reliable would you say it is? maria: thank you for an interesting question. bloggers, once they realize conventional -- they move into the blog sphere. as well as just the government realizes that. we see the censorship shifting toward the social media as well.

it depends on what kind of social media question. russia has a very big social network which is analogous to facebook. -- created ity from scratch. a lot of people were communicating their. it was quite a tremendous -- --trument of doing the kicked out of russia. the majority of the russian opposition, they predicted that kind of development. article an academic that shows that facebook played

a major role for organization of that position. yet, the government doesn't understand it. the kremlin is smarter. they are right now making consistent attempts to take under control the social media on the internet with the foreign ownership structure. provider demanded to access to the russian security service. web -- in general, we know that most of the internet communication that happens in sent to theck and intelligence. the size of

information is so huge that it is impossible for the government .- double troubled enormouste unclear how the ministry should be to be able to process all of that information. recently, we also faced a new attack of hackers. just last week, i was one of the victims of the e-mails, hackers engaged in the attacks against the u.s.. i may have taken part in that. for example, that happened during one of the as is and -- one of the position party

primaries. their service were attacked in the primaries were undermined because of those attacks. aware ofe kremlin is the internet and everything that is going on. definitely trying to implement a lot of different attacks to take it under control. they took about the possibility of complete internet shutdown or create some kind of firewall. there are some people who are optimistic about that but given the new development, i would not be that optimistic. at some point, the firewall might be possible. paul: sorry, please. the sites that were close in russia, because the isis addenda. -- the isis addenda. the reason they were closed, the

propaganda -- i believe you have the same problem. europe has the same problem. pertaining to the firewall, we are really educated in terms of creating new firewalls to make that firewall working. problems withany this safe bet because we can go to the telegram and make some discussions there. we can create a new platform. any closures in russia, it because bit strange, our authority which bans the site is one of the most liberal

authorities, even if we compare it -- ifope, because we see how many sites are banned in russia, the number is not so big. if we talk about the opposition, yes, there were the closures, but the closures were in the year of 2089 -- 2008 and 2009. you will hear -- [indiscernible] he was at the court recently. and the topic was terrorism. that was his problem. >> [indiscernible]about how

serious -- be erased from the face of the earth. what putin is doing right now in syria. [indiscernible] >> he was talking about the splitting russia into two or three or four pieces. i don't know. it has a connection with the national security. about the site, i have to tell investigating the terrorist attacks and how the iso-works in russia. isil works in russia.

the sites you can find the werescernible]the sites all kind of iso-propaganda --isil propaganda. it was quite in october and september last year. paul: thank you very much. >> i write a foreign affairs columnist for the boston globe and i want to thank you both. it was really fascinating your remarks. i will make my question brief

because i have to leave early. maria, to you. you presented that you had a situation where you only had five publications that were willing to accept your writing because it was considered so critical. briefly, i want to ask you about personal repercussions that you have faced. if not, why not? anna, because you work for state media, but obviously are critical -- are a critical thinker, i wonder if you worry about whether you are being manipulated? i am a edition minded journalist. i try to understand what is going on. why i think the reason

was immune to any attacks. there is always a bunch of trolls on the internet that follow you and cite your articles the matter where you publish -- they find your articles no matter where you publish. ofre are always some kind comments, suggesting you sold your soul to the cia. until recently, this march, there was an article on the internet that suggested i could much assisted in publishing an article about -- in the west and post. used ine article was another video for trying me as scheme.d of central

but i am worried to have some kind of problem in russia, but i was fine. enough who live in russia are costly under all kind -- are constantly under all kind of attacks. very often mye] relatives are there. a lot of people are suffering and it is getting worse and worse. trolls are say the after me. saying that i have sold my soul to the devil. this[indiscernible]

is actually. talking about me being manipulated. am i? answer because i do not know. i am the person of numbers, and i am really into lots of documents. when i try to understand something myself, i try to understand maybe i was manipulated. for example, the story of the elections, actually i was covering the protests at the site of protests. it was very cold.

i saw lots of people and i can say i saw the marginalization of the crowd. yes, it was kind of the government has exaggerated the power of the opposition, because there were lots of people there. even people who wanted to resurrect the russian empire. they were really strange people, this strange crowd. afterwards, the reports at the station that the opposition influential very went out to park -- when out to plottingand had some something perverted. kind of exaggeration. yeah. paul: thank you very much.

other questions. >> i work for sealy corporation. a question for maria. first of all, the role of information entertainment that carries some information. we hear that is some kind of new trend. if people are not watching the news, then they are many political, but there are a lot of entertainment which russian media is very skilled and has very good entertainment. do you see this? , doesn't question is vladimir putin control media? -- does vladimir putin control media? or people around the vladimir putin control media? he talks about how people around

putin wanted to put [indiscernible]putin would be convinced. i'm trying to find who controls media in russia? is it the center? or the people around him? maria: there is a huge development. broadcasts that are associated to the media. showsvery popular form of , one of the most popular in russia. you see a lot of the shows. sometimes it is outrageous what is being communicated. [indiscernible]

--gested that russia suggested -- and things like that. the reason i am sorry to say it has a lot of political very detailed what theys -- that is discuss. that is important. the reason i point this out is the prosecutor has been very moral. messages that ultimately aimed at destroying russia's morals. when you analyze the content in the russian media, you realize that it is much more morals than anything. morality is kind of settled.

another important part that response to your question is russia's tv shows. recently analyzed that a majority of the russian tv shows that are popular, most of them have the main character, a good character. braveceman, a very officer. a broadcasted interpretation of homeland in russia. things like that. this is very important. the message is translated everywhere. else, corrupt and bad and malicious.

definitely a political message is communicated in a different shape and forms. as to your other question, who controls and implements the policies? putin definitely is not holding his hand in every single thing that is going on. the administration that has a bunch of people responsible for interpreting, understanding and implementing this trend. out,e way, as anna pointed it is very often the key that the servants, the officials that attract to serve the president and interpret his narrative correctly. they overdo it sometimes. it is less of a scene.

general, it is a benevolent act. if they are overdoing it -- that is a very soviet characteristic of this. the administration is now understanding who is responsible for a majority of the control over the media. there is a whole bunch of lower-level actors. got oligarchs and regional governors. you see something happening on the regional level which is something more to do with the desire -- it is important of course not to think that putin is behind every single act of censorship, but he is behind the overall trend and overall dynamics.

paul: ambassador? >> this is a two-part question for both of you. you can answer whatever part you want. i was talking to a very sophisticated russian who lived in russia and the west. he pointed out, and i was talking to him about this sort of information of the russian media sitting over the last 15 to 20 years. thes old enough to remember end of the soviet period. he says that people who remember that period, and then went through the 90's -- the 1990's, watched the current russian -- since they have experienced the current media, they are; and the skeptical and don't really buy

into it. the younger generation, people who came to maturity in the last two decades, they don't have any frame of reference. they buy into this stuff. they watch it and believe it, base,at is the real putin this sort of nationalistic, patriotic kind of group that the media caters to. is do youuestion agree? my second related question is, when i am in -- i have to say i am not a russian speaker. at least i have been exposed enough to know and see that what the russian media machine has produced is really quite remarkable. i have to ask myself where did

this come from? we all know in the soviet period, russian propaganda was horrible. it was laughable. i ask myself, how in a relatively short period of time did the russians become so adept at doing this, both toward their own population, but also with rt and other channels. paul: who wants to go first echo -- go first? anna: so, for the first question. i believe it depends on your own critical ability to think and experience. when you say about the people who remember the stories, me

myself i remember the soviet as well. ability to judge by your experience. the answer is yes. they are just in their 20's so they do not have enough experience to judge. is -- it depends on them to develop a more critical mind. we have a project graded by the youngsters and for the youngsters. it is a close society of people who are communicating. -- weave the limitation

this society.t of you can discuss everything this society. the example of the second really --i believe we in the beginning of this new century, because we had enough to be verynd people well educated. people have propaganda as well. they have their shows with the security officers.

learned, ande tried to do the things here in russia. about theone thing team.t russia's resident two people from his team used to russia's officers and larger oil companies. they work for mr. putin. they really succeeded with the propaganda of their own company. i remember me myself being there is a first-year student. i saw the ads on the tv made by them. they were really cool. no one in russia could do the same thing.

this is one of the reasons, of course. paul: it did not leave their boss out of jail. remarkable how many course, the of great cardinal behind a lot of the kremlin policies. question --e first -- just before community affairs despots. i think it is for the younger. anna: for the russian community as well. i am subscribed. maria: don't take it personal.

when it comes to first of all , putinriotism orientation among the youngsters. those who are about 20 years old , that is the reality we face. there were several publications on the issue back in 2015. -- they discovered discovered the new generation is much more pro-putin, patriotic and general anti-western which is combined with the overall large exposure to the western media and lifestyles and in general, they travel there more often than their parents do. interesting dynamics is in a lot of other eastern european

countries, such as hungary where you see remarkably the regeneration being presented with much more conservative views. against the liberalization of the 1990's. i -- yeltsin. -- yeltsin period. that is when i was formed. contesting your local politician, you could do something. aget of contemporaries my in the big cities who are the next generation was already formed and shaped during the putin presidency.

the only person they remember. they don't know anybody else. they are exposed to this narrative of the great russia. they are susceptible to it. thata has been shown family has the biggest impact on political views. they test the comparative framework. we have discussed that these younger people do not compare themselves to the way life used to be in the soviet union. they don't remember that. everything they are taught nowadays about the soviet union -- great country and we showed those americans who is the big guy here. things are good, right?

they are brought up with the sentiment that is confirmed by their families and the media message. they compare their lives to the life of the questions just the western yonkers -- the western youngsters and obviously, they are not happy. at the same time, combined with this exposure to the west. they listen to the same music, watch the same movies, the same shows. they discuss the same things. to move from here to your other question regarding the content by the russian media. it is an important question. first of all, russia has lots of -- it is quite remarkable every time at travel there, how many invaders we have and it is set to think about how great the country could have been.

2000, the kremlin seem to have realize that the way to go in today's world is soft power. you see this trend and also it's got some money from the revenues . in the 1990's, everybody was really poor. they kremlin hired a lot of western strategists, pr managers. they learned a lot. -- also within the western companies that cooperated with the kremlin. parties that were paid very well by the kremlin. quite a good -- policy of the content, not in terms of the

message that is being communicated. the way things are done. production. kremlinults in the message being quite competitive, especially when it comes to the western to be channeled where? the content is much more competitive. in general such as rt are in the west, their coverage is relatively minor. it makes the kremlin media much more competitive against the immediate competitors in eastern europe and central asia. and within the domestic audience when it comes to comparisons within the kremlin media. obviously the kremlin has much more money and much more attractive and appealing. the important implication when it comes to the -- in cousin asked on and the baltics, the

kremlin media provides a .otential toll, weapon that is i get the dnr. -- actions are supported by the kremlin content and audiences. most audiences watch it constantly. he says everybody watches the russian tv. everybody speaks russia there. that is a danger because it contingencies which are susceptible to the kremlin message. from my own add personal experience from the

production value. i watched online this high-profile russian television documentary for the domestic audience about the return of crimea to russia. crimea, the way back home was the english translation. .t is a very compelling film it had interviews with put in and they would cut to reenactments and interviews with people in crimea, with crimean better cooked -- it was effectively done. no question. quick -- likes -- >> thank you for this powerful presentation. i will ask you a very straightforward question. as i listen to you, i thought

there was an agreement that whatever is a russian state, the russian media machine, there was some purpose to it. there was some thinking behind it. explain what the help the kremlin is doing in terms of trying to put fear into the american elections? here who some people included, --myself speaking to the group today, mr. putin said this is almost insulting to suggest that russia could be interfering into american election because the .nited states is a superpower

how could anyone mention that russia could affect the outcome? that he was- i saw accused of many things. ,uthlessness, dishonesty corruption. he was never accused of being an incompetent idiot. that is getting reports whatever russia is doing in the united states, in order to influence the u.s. elections, this is quite counterproductive. they want to promote russia image into the states, they are doing the exact opposite. what is going on? we don't understand the purpose?

ana: some -- so this is loadable thing. i just remember the first poll. i believe it was a bloomberg. putin was included as one of the candidates and he had 78% of hate. he was included. know how to react on this, because we in russia -- ok, you have the elections. you really elect your presidents. we do not want to influence

somehow in it. the thing is we did not start it, because i believe it started from the information campaigns here in the u.s. it started first time for the 25 russiait has taken somehow is again the factor that can influence the u.s. elections campaign. it is very strange. i think you got a very interesting interpretation. much. thank you very in my opinion there is no question that the kremlin engaged and it has been confirmed by the major.

when it comes to the origin of the cyber attacks -- we have been discussing with a bunch of russians -- russian experts. i thought in the russian community, these two completely deny that engagement. today, the evidence is so overwhelming, they can no longer deny, and so they say it is mostly trolling. wanted to point out that is not the first -- the united states is not the first case when similar attacks have been happening. -- sincein has been 2007. the first incident points to the soldier that was involved in a ofndal regarding the removal the former monument of the .oviet soldier

there was a huge wave of attacks against a bunch of media and .nstitutions in estonia we can move up -- we can remember the georgian war. ukrainian war where the political media came under a similar attack. there is no question that this new development is not in the same line. what is the kremlin trying to achieve? i won't be up to explain all of this thinking. in my opinion, there is an element of just continue an escalation between the two powers. probably the way that -- the way to show that russia is not scared of anything. provide kremlin with the response to any kind of accusation regarding this take nature of elections in russia.

unfair.was very the most important factor is support for the fire right candidate -- the far right candidate. we have observed that previously on many occasions and other countries. have beenently backing any political actors who -- thee instrumental sanctions that have been introduced against russia. hungary, poland, slovakia, czech republic, russia is usually connected to that person. kremlinurces to the -- officers,ious

secret agents. in my opinion, there is no doubt the kremlin is trying to make everything possible to prevent hillary from getting it, in fact to assist donald trump. the interesting question in my the colleagues of donald trump are exposed to having sending -- having sent links to russia? [indiscernible] this is something that has been litigated here. actually, hillary clinton -- there are so many things that can be said about her.

we don't have any position toward hillary clinton. one important person from the hillary clinton campaign actually works with russia on one of the showcases here in the united states of america. i don't know whether we have a contradiction. paul: let's have the last question from the editor of the national interest. we will try to keep quick. >> both of these presentations are testimony to the fact that the russian educational system the be rocksolid, because english beats many of the native language panelists we have here. the educational system may be fine, but you can have all of the top again the you want, all

of the media, but the statistics of thee that -- 70% russian economy is now state-owned. businesses. the economy continues to deteriorate. what is your prognosis for russia's future? is the putin regime actually stable? is this a barrage? senator paul: 30 seconds or less. -- paul: 30 seconds or less. -- maria: the kremlin consistently implement the coordinate trying to a large share of the assets. there are so many interest

groups under the kremlin. and of add new assets under the kremlin control. i believe that both -- there is an interest on the kremlin side to get the important assets under control, because that provides control. it provides power and strengthens the system from the viewpoint the decision-makers. , it it comes to long-term is good because the independent theys and foundation -- tend to have their own interests and that is what the kremlin doesn't want. the largest assets in the russian economy have conditional ownership. -- owns aink somebody

particular asset, informally -- now,et maybe although this structure is bad economically, it brings some benefits,economically, it bringe benefits, because it eliminates independence in the society, because interdependence is now under control. you cannot be independent when you start, right? .onetheless, economics economics not looking very good. one of the reasons why the legitimate and of the state -- .egitimation of the state the kremlin is trying to justify itself and explain its existence. that is why competition with the west is necessary.

economics spoke to my -- the economy has been slightly recovering. reagan forecasted. -- we can forecast it. close to stagnation. that's why the sanctions have been in place. the western sanctions against russia. it doesn't mean that in the near future, the economic problems will change the system. that is not likely, because -- theyof putin's types are based on this system of distribution that comes from the top. corruption is instrumental in it. they keep the whole thing

together. this kind of system does not fall just because there's a crisis. any many years of continued stagnation for serious problems for people to realize things cannot continue. i would not expect anything to bad happen in the near future. >> you have the last word. if you look at the income of the state, the whole russian celebration. we see, of course, we're still dependent. have thete that we inclusion of different sales. military companies are playing a bigger role. september 2015 to

september 2016, we are in the campaign in syria. the best advertisement for the russian arms. we have lots of contracts being made for this year. probably in control of this context because -- well established contracts. the income will come next year and we are anticipating that this will be a huge factor that will support our economy. moscow, we have -- the authorities have liberated of -- people are looking closely at the government. sometimes they -- we can note

that the elect of their own will to try to act, because they can business.small -- to explain to some people that if you want to see a great russia again, somehow you shall try to do something. >> thank you very much. please join me. [applause] >> thank you so much for being with us.